Reservoir Dogs turns 25

Metro Arts will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Quentin Tarantino’s classic gangster film with a late night screening.

When Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992, its impact on cinema — not just in America, but around the world — was like a nuclear bomb going off.

Tarantino’s directorial debut ushered in the age of the mash-up, as he put together a slew of references to his favourite films, music and pop culture to create a slick new type of crime movie that worked as a great film in its own right.

“I was really into not just American gangster films, and not just Scorsese films, which is what most people thought of as gangster films back then… I was a fan of the Jean-Pierre Melville movies, of Hong Kong stuff, of the [Japanese] Yakuza films and the Fernando Di Leo Italian mafia movies,” Tarantino told Mashable at a 25th anniversary screening at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

“I’m taking bits from all of them, not so much tangible bits, but just kind of like the feeling.”

Starring Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Chris Penn, Lawrence Tierney and Tim Roth, Reservoir Dogs has been named the Greatest Independent Film of All Time by Empire, and its violent, self-aware, non-linear storytelling has influenced too many other writers and directors to mention.

Eight films and two-and-a-half decades later, Tarantino has directed movies that have been far more successful at the box office, but he’s never directed a better movie than Reservoir Dogs.

Brisbane cult cinema guru Kristian Fletcher will host a 25th anniversary screening of Reservoir Dogs in The Lumen Room at Metro Arts from 10:15pm on Friday 5 May. For more info and tickets, visit the event page.